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New York, 7:50 AM
Fri Nov 27
2 posts in the last 24 hours
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04/08/09
It's like everyone wants pregnant ladies to stop living and hermetically seal themselves in a fucking bubble for 9 months.
Fuck that noise. I'm not an incubator!
For the record, my baby boy was born healthy and nom-nommy.
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Which makes me think that my mom - who by her own admission went through two pregnancies eating nothing but doughnuts and Kool-Aid - might have had the right idea after all.
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So, she came to the bar with us (like, once every two months or something) and would have one beer and relax while hubs took care of their three-year-old for a couple hours. It was great for her to get out of the house, de-stress, reconnect with friends, etc.
04/08/09
I don't give a shit if you have a glass of wine or whatever, but splitting a fifth of Morgan's with your friend while chaining Newports probably isn't the best thing.
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She gave up the cigarettes when pregnant with my brother. He was ELEVEN POUNDS.
When he handed her the baby, her OB-GYN said, "Next time, Jane - smoke."
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That is awesome.
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I'm more concerned about the secondhand smoke I've gotten over the years...but what are you gonna do.
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mama.kitty: You have it easy. I had to cook, clean, and work full-time while living with my in-law's house. I had no hired help. Your dad never changed a (cloth) diaper.
grandma.kitty: You are spoiled. I had to weave all our family's clothes, walked 30 miles to fetch water from the closest well, worked the rice paddies, squatted and delivered all my babies alone, and still had dinner ready for my husband when he came home.
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A friend of mine is rather far along in her pregnancy, and she just had new carpet put in her house. She'd been home all day breathing in the fumes (from what I read, the smell is no biggie, but the glue they use that's evaporating in the first few hours isn't great for mom or baby). I wrestled between whether I should mention anything about it. People have been birthing time eternal, doing everything from horseback riding to smoking, while pregnant, and many times there's no issue, and really, it's not my business...But then again, I was concerned about her health and baby's health. She's been almost overly careful up to this point so I wondered what she was thinking. So I kind of jokingly brought it up, like...how could you be in the house with the fumes? But I didn't push it and really, the situation had already occured, so I let it go.
I suppose what we have to do is draw that line between genuine concern for the mother and baby's well-being and judgment calls that are based on societal standards of "proper" behavior for pregnant women. I just know it can sometimes be a very hard line to find.
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And for the record, my mom rode horseback with me until she was 8 months and couldn't fit behind the saddle anymore (gentle riding, not like galloping though mountain trails), so I'm really not an alarmist. :)
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My MIL, on the other hand, was horrified that I would even contemplate painting when I was pregnant. It was really about her. The very idea that I might inadvertently damage her grandchild!
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Which is hilarious, because she was maybe a size two before she got pregnant, so you KNOW she's pregnant.
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My general take on How Pregnancy Works is that what you take in, so does the baby. So yeah, not smoking is probably better, and getting drunk every night isn't a great idea. But if your body is taking in some nice Brie and peanut butter sandwiches and rare steak, and your body is responding by creating antibodies, then those antibodies get passed to the kid, too. (The cheese thing REALLY pisses me off. Cheeses in the US MUST be made from pasteurized milk if they're aged under 60 days, so your feta and brie and fresh goat cheeses are, by law, pasteurized. And the enzymes and chemical reactions in aged-over-60-days cheeses basically kills all the bad bugs anyway. BUT, there is no evidence that eating a raw-milk cheese is dangerous for mom OR fetus! HA!)
And, luckily, I know several OBs who've said in no uncertain terms that if NOT having a glass of wine once every couple of weeks is more stressful than having one, then go to! The stress is worse for the baby than an occasional glass of wine. Or caffeine withdrawal. Etc. Etc. ETC.
My sis-in-law had an NYC pregnancy and now she's an NYC mother, right down to selective preschooling. And she lives in Florida. I love my nephew, but.... for fuck's sake. We put far, far too much emphasis on what's 100% safe. If we don't expose our fetuses to our antibodies, they don't get antibodies. Then they're sick or have food allergies or any of a billion issues that weren't issues until our society made them issues.
(I feel rather strongly about this issue. Obviously.)
04/08/09
And I really do believe it's better off for my baby to intake a little caffeine now and then from my every-other-day coca cola than having all those stress hormones flooded into his system from my headaches and caffeine withdrawals.
I did cut out coffee, green tea and other, stronger drinks, however.
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Ugh, I hate those parents. Your 4 year old is just as cute and stupid as all the other 4 year olds.
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My vegetarian-for-15-years-at-the-time mother became a rampant carnivore when she was up the duff! Eventually my gran had to move in in order to furnish her with adequate roast dinners!
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Argh- I am all freaking wound up now.
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I'm close to seven months along and when I'm out to dinner, I have been ordering Virgin Mary's. It's kind of fun to watch poeple's reactions at the sight of me sipping on them.
Not that they aren't delicious and good for you, but I mostly order them to be a little sh*t.
04/08/09